Always love seeing photos of the past and comparing them to now. Everything is nice and clean. People are nicely dressed, everyone seems happy. Sure the USSR had its problems and things didnt work they way it was supoosed to, but look at “russia” today and see how poorly it compares now.

I believe Russia today has to rediscover the power and will to control certain aspects of civil life. Germany and Japan certainly have. It is no crime to run and control your country the way the majority see fit.

International trade and economy are more fully understood in Russia today. Young people have gone abroad and studied it for a generation. Therefore, Russia is in a better position now to open up to outside investors, permit the sale or long term leasing of real estate to foreigners, to build and start business. But the underlying flaw, in the character of Russian leadership is and always has been, they have no faith in the Russian people to govern themselves. This is the difference between the USA and Russia. Not an American trait, it was a gift from the British. It’s the foundation.

So went the theory, at least at first. This is part of the reason Stalin sent loyal Red Army soldiers to work camps for the crime of having actually interacted with Westerners during WWII. However, this photographic montage is of the 60’s, which were a different time entirely. Under Khrushchev, things opened up and a certain amount of intellectual freedom was allowed which had not been there since the beginning of Stalin’s reign. Sadly though, this is also why he was deposed and Brezhnev was put in his place. While the USSR never again returned to the purges, it nevertheless did go back to a time that the government tightened it’s grip a bit. This would not really be relaxed until Gorbachev, and when it was it helped bring down the country by allowing old wounds to be explored once again. He couldn’t control the ethnic tensions while also fixing the supply problems that existed for the average consumer. Once dissent and speech was allowed in order to try and find the real issues in consumer needs, the whole house of cards fell down around it.

True, but Putin is not a true communist either. He’s more like a fascist than a communist in that he is using private industry to build the nation’s wealth and not placing it all under central ownership and control. Also, communism, at least in Marx’s writings, is not nationalistic whereas Putin most certainly is. Ultimately though, the failures of the early days of the Russian Federation were due at least in part to failing infrastructure and outdated production methods. By letting the worker’s soviets have so much say over the factories, they failed to modernize and become more efficient. Instead they chose to keep labor intensive production methods around long after they had become obsolete in the rest of the world. Add to that the collapse of the Ruble and already endemic problems of corruption in the supply chain for even the most basic of necessities, and it was inevitable that it would take a long time, perhaps a generation, before the system could be fixed. Russia still has these problems though as, even 20 years or so after the fall of communism, they still produce basically the same cars and other goods as they did when it was the USSR. If they were to ever learn to innovate on their own and produce good consumer goods Russia would be a force to be reckoned with. However, for whatever reason, there does not seem to be the will to do so in the country as it stands. Is it the government’s fault? Partly, but most of the blame belongs to the people who fail to innovate for themselves unless it is for short term profit from dubious enterprises.

If you do not know what I will explain, the Russian general, much less smile compared with Americans or other Anglo Saxons. The smile of courtesy in Russia causes mistrust and mood. And if in Russia you ask “how are you” it means the person is really interesting and the answer may be very different and not just “fine”

People who had lived though hard times were in charge and were determined to guide everyone to a better future. People were having babies, education was respected, people had lifted their eyes up to space and almost nobody had heard of peak oil, grain or fish.

Now of course, spoilt brats who’ve never worked a day in their life are in charge, honest people can’t afford to have babies, education is mocked in media & politics and peak fish and grain are already past as is peak oil for many countries and soon the world.